Down A versus speedy opponents for those who love their zoning

[FieryRebirth]

One of the best advice one can give against evenly matched opponents in Smash is to remain unpredictable and open-minded as possible and that even the least effective of moves have a use in some form.

Robin's Down A is fairly useless, yes? No?

I found that this rather speedy attack is pretty decent at stopping speedy characters in their tracks and put them at least in Arcfire distance. I found this simple tactic useful against aggressive, short-range grabbers who take advantage of their high speed dashes to get the upper hand such as Sonic or Meta Knight.

If the opponent doesn't react fast enough after suddenly being stopped, then you have the advantage for follow-ups.

I'm under the vague impression that this attack is meant to be spammed, I guess because of the recovery - still, this move alone helps give you the distance you need against those that won't give you the range you want.

What other uses have you guys found for Down A?

 

[Tattles]

Down A (more commonly referred to as D-tilt) is definitely Robin's fastest move, but that doesn't excuse it's pathetic range. It's still a good move, and should be used as a "get the hell away from me"-move, like N-air.

It's a good out of shield option, and is safe enough on shield that you shouldn't be afraid to use it on someone's shield. Overall it's very good at dealing with shields, and is basically the only standard move (excluding spells) that can deal with shields at all.

 

[FieryRebirth]

I'm not sure why I was afraid of the recovery out of it's frames, I had assumed it had a very slow recovery but that's not true like most D-tilts(thanks for the correction). Just goes to show you how much use this move gets in common matches.

 

[turtle roll]

One useless thing I've found with Robin's D-tilt is that it strings nicely into robin's final smash. Admittedly, It does okay with thoron, but if they are expecting it, they can just jump out of the way.

But yeah, it's a pretty good move to get people off of you when you need to, though the F-tilt has a little bit better range at the cost of longer recovery.

 

[Catoust]

If you have the right range, it's a good punisher for people for roll or forward onto the stage. Personally, I just let faster characters(Little Mac exempt at the moment) run towards me and dodge their dash attack, responding with a side tilt.

 

[LoreLes]

Robin's dtilt is actually a very nice tool to use. I find myself using it a lot against people who like to dash shield.